Rita (my wife) works in a grocery store. Last week, her department manager thought it’d be a good idea to implement a suggestion box. It wasn’t.

Suggestion boxes, by nature, are supposed to be suggestive. Helpful, even if critical. They’re also supposed to be anonymous. In this case, one suggestion wasn’t respected as anonymous.

The suggestion was something about how to improve scheduling, and the department manager took it as a personal slight. They recognized the suggester’s handwriting and called that worker out. Not just in front of the staff, but also in front of customers.

Rita, being a Cancer, intervened and settled things down. And down came the suggestion box, but not before the damage was done. The berated worker laid a complaint to HR, and the disciplinary genie is out of the bottle. Or better put, the laundry is out of the hamper.

What’s this got to do with us here at the Kill Zone? Well, as writers, we have a suggestion box open all the time. It can be in the comment section following a post. It can be feedback from beta readers. Or, it can be online reviews on our book publishing sites.

I moderate my comments on my personal blog site. I nix the odd Negative Nellie, but if someone has a valid point that disagrees with my content, I’ll let it stand. Often, I’ll learn something.

I no longer work with beta readers. Very few ever came through and, if they did, the feedback wasn’t particularly helpful. It just wasn’t worth the time and the effort.

I have a friend whose wife is an A-List romance writer. She gave me advice early in my game. “Don’t read your reviews,” she said. “The 1-Stars are trolls. The 5-Stars are suck-ups. And the ones in-between never have useful suggestions.”

Suggestions.

Kill Zoners — How do you deal with suggestions? Good, bad, or indifferent? Feel free to suggest.